An Artist's Eye
by Dickensian812
Summary: AU/possible futurefic. Harold and Grace are married; work-related complications ensue. Usual disclaimers. Thanks to Haiza Tyri!


An Artist's Eye

It had taken several arguments before Harold would even show her the library where he worked, and several more before he would agree to her spending any significant amount of time there. As she had patiently pointed out to him over and over, he worked such long hours that if he didn't let his wife visit him on the job (this strange, nerve-racking, self-imposed job of his), she would hardly ever see him. Which was especially unfair when she hadn't seen him for years.

Besides, if it was her safety that worried him so much, well, wasn't she safer with him than without him?

(John Reese, rather surprisingly, had backed her up on this. He'd reminded Harold of a woman that he himself had once driven away, to keep her safe. Apparently it hadn't worked; John's face as he spoke of her made Grace's stomach clench. So much pain and loss seemed to surround this job, these men . . . )

Every reason she'd given Harold was perfectly true. The other reason, the one she didn't tell him about, was the times when he looked up from his absorption in his work, and realized afresh that she was there, doing her own work by the window. She loved the expression of surprise and pleasure that flickered over his face in those moments. Sometimes she toyed with the idea of painting that look, but it was quick and hard to catch. Like a butterfly or a—Grace smiled to herself—a bird.

She had piled up a stack of books on a disused table and was attempting to capture the way the sunlight, filtering through the dusty window, fell across them. On the other side of the room, she half-noticed, tempers were beginning to fray.

"Same old problem." John was pacing. "Harold, you have to figure out a way to tell the victims from the perps! We can't keep flying blind like this."

"Believe it or not, the thought had occurred to me," Harold said dryly. "For instance, when I found myself at the business end of a gun held by a lunatic."

Grace swallowed. She had heard the story of Harold's kidnapping. Though it was now safely in the past, any reference to it made her insides feel coated with ice.

A frustrated sigh from John brought her back to the present. "Run that last clip again."

Harold pressed "play" on the security camera footage that they had just been examining, and both of them studied the screen intently and silently for several minutes. They'd been trying for two days to figure out the reason that several police officers' numbers had come up at the same time. A few new cops had recently been transferred to the unit, and information from Fusco had indicated the presence of some sort of a mole among them, but not who it was.

"No sign of him," John murmured. "Not a surreptitious movement, no slipping a bug onto another guy, no—"

"That one."

The voice caused John to start and Harold to twist around awkwardly, eyebrows lifted as high as they would go. Grace had slipped up behind them, and was gazing fixedly at the cop on the far right side of the screen.

"Look." Her finger traced the outline of the bunch. "Look how they group themselves—" The invisible line she was drawing in the air broke off abruptly before it reached the last man—"And now watch as they move around. This one is always just a little out of sync. Always on the fringe, never quite blending in."

She leaned in, resting one hand lightly on Harold's as she pointed with the other. "And see, right there—his uniform is pressed a little too perfectly, tie a little too straight . . . everything too polished. He's trying too hard. Probably new at this, or he wouldn't be so easy to . . ." Her voice trailed off as she remembered the hours of work they'd put in, and reconsidered the use of the word _easy_.

And then realized that both men were staring at her.

"You don't need more data from the Machine, Harold," she offered, gently. "You just need an artist's eye."

Feeling her face grow warm under their continued stare, she took half a step back. The movement appeared to snap John out of his trance.

"Harold," he said fervently, snatching up his coat, "I wish you'd gotten married years ago." The door slammed behind him.

From the way he was looking at her, Grace thought, Harold seemed inclined to agree. That expression, her favorite one, was back on his face—not fleeting this time, but lingering.

Maybe she would paint it, after all.


End file.
